Ebony Pendant - Ebony Pendant (2023)^{Release ID: 46148}

Ebony Pendant is a solo project of S.C. (Simon Coseboom) and this self-titled release is his sophomore full-length, following 2020's "Incantation of Eschatological Mysticism" debut, a couple of splits and an EP (2021's "The Garden of Strangling Roots". He plays version of melodic black metal, but with quite a raw production which gives it a bit more of an edge (and air of underground authenticity) than your usual melo-black outfit. It doesn't exactly possess the thin sound you would usually associate with the rawest black metal, with enough bass presence to boost the muscularity of the riffs, but the production somehow gives the impression that it is a lot rawer and thinner-sounding than it actually is. Vocally, S.C. has a nice line in evil, demonic croaking, similar to Immortal's Abbath, which suits the material really well. Surprisingly, for a guy who is a drummer himself with both Seattle death metallers Degraved and black metal act Griefspell, S.C. has recruited his pal K.M. as skinsman for this album from the death doom band Cavurn of which they are both members (S.C. on guitar in that mob). K.M.'s drumming is decent, being pretty frantic, yet well-controlled and helps drive the riffs and maintain the breakneck pacing.

A couple of nice, gentle acoustic passages aside, S.C. makes no attempt to court the black metal intelligentsia who want black metal to constantly be pushing boundaries with experimentation, dissonance and genre-splicing. No, despite the melodicism of some of the riffs, this is pure black metal - adrenaline-fuelled, old-school, ripping with icy claws at the listener's sensibilities. The raw production gives Ebony Pendant's melodicism a cold and frigid edge that is the cornerstone of all truly awesome black metal and this frostiness gives tracks such as the more melancholic-sounding "Whispers of a Nameless Fear" or "Sentiment for a Time Long Forgotten" a cutting edge that it may have lacked with a fuller production. Ebony Pendant are new to me, but despite the fact that they will probably never raise their heads over the parapets of the USBM underground, they deserve much praise for flying a flag for unashamed old-school black metal blasting and have the potential to become firm favourites of mine.